Reconforming video only...the easy way

Software: Avid Adrenaline
Platform: Windows / Mac
Skill Level: Intermediate

The following tip was a revelation to me, but may be quite old hat to some of you. So if this is bleeding obvious, my apologies, but I use this tip every single day. Thanks to Julian at Backyard Blitz for this ripper.

One of my very common workflows is to capture material at a low res (i.e. 15:1s), cut the offline and then recapture the video only at full res (i.e. 1:1). Obviously, reconforming the audio is a waste of time because audio is at "full res" already.

My previous method of doing this was to:

1. Select the Video layers only
2. Make a subsequence in a new bin
3. Decompose the new sequence with whatever handles are required
4. Batch digitize the decomposed master clips
5. Edit the video layers back over the offline vision to create a hi-res master.

Now, this is still a good method if you have a lot of source tapes, or you want to be able to pause the reconform and resume it easily. But if you have a small number of sources then there is another way.

1. Open your Capture settings, and choose the Batch tab.
2. Deselect the setting Capture the tracks logged for each clip and choose OK.
3. If you want to keep a copy of your offline sequence, select the original sequence and press CTRL-D (win) or APPLE-D (mac) to duplicate it.
4. Open the Capture window, and make sure only the V1 and TC tracks are selected.
5. Select the duplicated copy of your sequence.
6. Choose Clip > Batch Capture, unselect the Offline media only option and change the handles to whatever you require then choose OK.

Avid will now redigitize the video only and ask for each source tape in turn. Rememeber that you will need to use Batch Import as well if you have imported graphics in the sequence.

One note: At the end of capture, Avid will tell you that the Batch capture was incomplete, but this is simply because it has skipped digitizing the audio based on your settings.

Disclaimer

Getting your Photoshop graphics to key "properly"

Software: Avid (all versions), Adobe Photoshop
Platform: Windows / Mac
Skill Level: Advanced

I got this great tip from Jorgen, who goes by the username rebusfilm on the Avid Commmunity Forums. These forums are an excellent resource for anyone needing help on Avid, so get over there if you haven't discovered them already. But now for the tip.

One of the most common uses of Photoshop with Avid is to create graphics that can be imported into Avid as a Real-time Matte Key. An example of this would be to create a corporate logo or "bug" that needs to be in one corner of your image for the length of an entire edit. Online editors also use Photoshop to create titles with styles and complexity that isn't supported by the Avid Title Tool.

The main problem with this, is that most of the file types that can be exported from Photoshop "pre-multiply" their foreground (fill) and their Alpha Channel when imported into Avid. This means that if you have any transparency or shadowing in your graphics, they won't "mix" correctly with your video background. The following image shows this problem. The drop shadow is keying over white instead of the flower colours in the video image, leading to a fringing effect.

To get around this problem, you can use the Portable Network Graphics or PNG file format which uses unmatted or straight transparency.

1. Create your graphics as normal in Photoshop including any text or drop shadows. Create these graphics on New Photoshop layers, instead of directly on the default background layer.
2. Delete your background layer so that your graphics appear on top of the Photoshop "checkerboard" background, indicating transparent parts of the image.
3. Save your logo as a .png file and choose No interlacing when the dialog appears.
4. In Avid, use File > Import and in the dialog Options... choose Non-interlaced and Invert Existing for the Alpha information.
5. Avid will import your PNG file as a real-time matte key.
6. Load your imported file into the source monitor.
7. Edit onto the video layer above your background, and you should now have a key that "mixes" with your background, like the one below:

Disclaimer

Three Shorties

Software: Avid Media Composer
Platform: Windows / Mac
Skill Level: Basic

Three of my favourite short tips today:

1.) Copy material to the clipboard and load in the source monitor in one step.

This is a great way to quickly duplicate a section of your sequence.

1. Select the required tracks on your timeline.
2. Set Mark In and Mark Out points.
3. Press CTRL-ALT-C (Windows) or APPLE-OPTION-C (Mac). The selected material is now loaded in your source monitor.
4. Use INSERT or OVERWRITE to edit the copied material into your sequence.

2.) Advance the position indicator repeatedly.

It's pretty common to click on your source or record monitor and then type in a plus symbol and a timecode to advance by a certain number of frames. What you might not know, is that you can continue to move ahead by the original amount by simply pressing enter again. For example, if you type +5 to move ahead 5 frames, hitting Enter again will continue to advance the position indicator by the same number of frames. I use this in the timeline quite a lot to set up edits of the same length, by typing the amount of frames, hitting Enter and then using Add Edit. From then on I can just use Enter then Add Edit until I've created the number of "placeholders" I need.

3.) Another way to remove Match Frame edits.

If you are in trim mode, and you are currently positioned on a match frame edit, you can press the Delete key to delete the match frame.

Disclaimer